


To Kill a Mockingjay

by Noraivy



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Animal Death, Character Development, One Shot, Plotting, Probably too serious for a fic entirely based on a pun, but you probably already knew that, character exploration, president snow is evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 08:43:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16594622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noraivy/pseuds/Noraivy
Summary: “it is a sin to kill a Mockingjay,” my Father says, hand on his gun and anger in his eyes “ It shows you are afraid of it”A young President Snow goes on a hunting trip and learns his most important lesson about dealing with rebels.A short character study, based on a pun and a creative writing prompt





	To Kill a Mockingjay

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically a re-working of a story I wrote when I was younger based on the prompt: "Write a story about the villain of the book you're reading which makes them sympathetic". The punny title always stuck with me, so I rewrote this, and while I don't think I've made him anywhere near sympathetic, I hope I've managed an insight into his way of thinking!

“It is a sin to kill a Mockingjay,” My Father said “ It shows that you are afraid of it”

The Com-screen flickers in front of me, and there she stands. Fist raised and teeth bared, she looks more a wild dog than a Mockingjay. I shouldn’t fear her. I do.

When the rebellion was almost over, the dark days fading to light with a deceitful finality, my Father took me to the woods.

Without his soldiers and his guards he seemed only a man, face grizzled with all too natural age, and scars evident that even the most skilled healers couldn’t fade to nothing. I stumbled along at his side, a shy, serious boy of not quite eighteen.

In the woods, the air hung heavy with the smoke of a distant battle. The silence was false and fragmented, interrupted by the hauntingly human songs of the birds.

My Father turned to me, face solemn and vicious. “Do you know what that sound is, boy?”

“Mockingjays, Father?” I asked, always too quick, too eager to please. But this answer doesn’t please him.

“You are wrong,” He says striking a tree in sudden violence, sending the birds into a panicked uneven flight “ That is the sound of failure; my only failure”

I don’t reply, my heart thuds in terror and I know better than to aggravate my Father when he’s like this.

“We tried to destroy them you know” he continues, voice shaking with barely contained fury “ we poisoned them, gassed them, destroyed their homes and food sources, and still they came back singing their mocking songs”

I nod as if memorising his words. I know all this already, but why should I tell my Father that? Better to keep him in the dark about exactly many of his secrets I know. Mockingjays are hard to kill. It is a foolish thing not to know, but an ordinary one and it’s best if he thinks me ordinary.

“We could never destroy them all, so do you know what we did?” My Father asks, hardly seeming his words to be a question and not waiting for an answer. 

“My scientists realised something, there was one bird that led the call. And so we destroyed that bird and the next day there was not a Mockingjay in sight. We had no need to kill them if we could kill their spirit"

He holds his hand up for silence and we listen. Its all true, one bird sings and the other mimic, like an assembly of fools taking an oath they don’t understand.

A shot rings out and the bird falls silent, in a heap of feathers at my feet. My father turns the bird over with the toe of his white boots to lie it on it back like a sacrificial victim.

“it is a sin to kill a Mockingjay,” he says, hand on his gun and anger in his eyes “ It shows you are afraid of it”

“But if you choose, if you kill the right Mockingjay, you can kill them all. People are the same, every death from now must send a message not an empty threat. If we kill the right Mockingjay we need never see this again”

I know what my Father proposes, I’ve seen the plans, I’ve read the meeting transcripts, I know about the games, and now I see clearly why he thinks them so necessary.

“We must choose carefully then, Father,” I say, my voice boyish, betraying none of my own ambitions.

He nods in assent and we stand to enjoy the new found silence of these woods. Then he closes his eyes and sighs deeply and I know he will tell me the true reason for our trip. It could not merely be to kill birds.

“I’m dying” admits, voice steely “ I don’t know why I don’t know when I only know that I do not have long left, I will not see the end of this war”

“Dying” I whisper, as if this is news to me as if I were not the one who emptied poison into his wine at imperial banquets and watched his deterioration with cunningly disguised glee.

“you must take my place” he insists gripping my arm “complete my plans, kill the right Mockingjay, and when the time comes, if the time comes, remember what it takes to crush a rebellion”

I do everything he asks and more. When he dies a mere three weeks later I play the grieving son at his funeral in the morning and am sworn in as his replacement in the afternoon. I enact his plans to the letter, proving my self and showing that while the new General Snow has none of his father's quick temper I have twice his brains and more than twice his vicious determination.

We accept the districts surrender within a month.

And within two I am sworn in as the youngest president in Panem's history, In years I will add the phrase “Dictator Perpetuo” to my title negating the need for any more elections, but for now, the lie of democracy stands.

The Games, of course, are the biggest risk.

I search the faces of the tributes for anger or defiance and all I find is despair. The oldest is scarcely younger than me, the youngest only a child, but as I watch the crowds at the first reapings, I know I have chosen exactly the right Mockingjays.

So I smile as I declare the first Hunger Games open.

I never regret the games. And I regret many things, I regret letting my people grow so incapable, I regret allowing the game makers so much power when they would choose a happy ending over their own safety, and I regret not having that girl shot the second she pulled out those berries. And yet I can never bring myself to regret the games themselves.

Perhaps that is why the new government if it ever comes to power, plans to continue them. It’s almost laughable, to see the pretty Mockingjay fighting to reinstall the thing she hates.

But the Mockingjay has never been smart. She doesn’t have to be. All she has to do is sing and the others will mimic her words.

Destroying district twelve was a mistake, it was the Mockingjays all over again, but I was too blind to see it. Well, I see clearly now. I only needed to destroy one Mockingjay and I know just who she is, and where she is and I know how to kill her.

I know how to kill her because, trapping birds is easy enough, and I have a trap she can never resist.

Because after all it is a sin to kill a Mockingjay, but I will not kill her. Her love will kill her. In a way it's poetic, she claimed she would die for him, and now she will die because of him. And all the other Mockingjay will have no one to mimic, and slowly there will be peace in the forest once more.

So Katniss Everdeen must die.

Because once her song stops, so will the rebellion.


End file.
